Naming our Farm and 1901 Plat Map

Ethan is very interested in Early American history, especially the 18th century. John Adams has been a man that he respects, and when he found his farm name to be Stoneyfield Farm, he thought that would be a good name for our farm as well. We did quite a few searches to make sure it was a unique name, and we didn't find any matches. So Stoneyfield we became.

Well, it has become apparent to us that we are not along. Since naming our farm, we have discovered another company with the same name, although spelled differently - the reason we didn't come across it at first. Stonyfield Farm, which makes organic yogurt, has been around for a bit now and has grown into a well respected business.

Because of this, we decided that this year we are going to change our name.

SO - we are brainstorming! Here are some of the things we hope a name could reflect:

1- Early American history, particularly the 18th century, founding fathers, and/or early American farming

2- Family farms

3- Farming naturally, or "old fashioned"

Some other things:

We are starting to focus on heritage breeds. We have had Dexter Cattle, but we are also starting to focus on Hereford hogs - a heritage breed originating from Iowa and Nebraska.

We have also pulled up a plat mat from 1901 in hopes of finding something that would spark an idea. Although not much was sparked, it was interesting to see nonetheless.

The yellow square is our 40 acres of land. It was once part of Noah Simpson's 80 acres, which is the additional orange square. The homestead was on the far east of his property.

To the north was another homestead. From seeing this map and others, we can be fairly confident that we are the first homestead on our land.

There were also 3 schools in the area (purple), 2 churches (green), and 1 cemetery (white).

The 2 original homestead cites listed and the cemetery are still being used. The churches and schools are no longer around or have visible remains.

We are going to continue to do some digging around and brainstorming, and hopefully we will have our new name by summer so we can continue setting up our business.

p.s. We also checked out George Washington's farm names: Muddy Hole Farm, Union Farm, Mansion House Farm, Dogue Run Farm, River Farm, and Little Huntg. Creek Farm. Struck out there as well, although Ethan was particularly fond of Muddy Hole Farm with all of the rains we have had since we bought this place . . . sure has made things tough to get going.